


The Only Hoax I Believe In

by pansexualorgana (MaximumMarygold)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alphonse Elric is a little shit, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Crossover, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fae Jaskier | Dandelion, Fae!Jaskier, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Her name is Alys, Interdimensional Travel, Jaskier has a twin!, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Magic, Polyamory, Post-Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Yennefer loves both of those idiots, ciri is an angel, god help her, love triangles are for cowards, spoilers for conqueror of shamballa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27169672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaximumMarygold/pseuds/pansexualorgana
Summary: "It's called diplomacy, Alphonse," Mustang had returned and Alys straightened in her chair, wondering how much he'd heard before he announced himself, "and we have a good amount for it in the budget. Mostly because your brother wouldn't stop blowing things up," there was something in his voice that Alys recognized very clearly.Longing.She wondered if Alphonse knew that the general was in love with his older brother; either way, it wasn't her place to let that particular cat out of the sack.(In which a portal mishap; the collusion of magic, alchemy, and rocket science; her beautiful idiot of a brother; and some asshole named after a horse give Alys Pankratz a migraine)
Relationships: Edward Elric/OFC/Roy Mustang, Edward Elric/Roy Mustang, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	1. cascade, ocean wave blues

**Author's Note:**

> yall when i said 2020 was going to be ENTIRELY self indulgent i fuckin meant it i am here to have a good time and put someone in the middle of a royed sandwich
> 
> And I know I'm always like HEY WHAT'S UP BITCHES and I suck at responding to comments but I just wanted to let yall know that I DO in fact love and appreciate every single person who has ever given my shit a chance  
> And the fact the some of yall genuinely LIKE it?? Jesus
> 
> But yeah anyways any comment any kudo any bookmark any. Anything really. Really does bring a smile to my face and I just wanted to get Real here for like 2 seconds
> 
> Now back to our regularly scheduled bullshit
> 
> Alys is pronounced "Alice" btw

Alys hadn’t seen her brother in. Years. Fuck. Longer than she should have, probably. He was just so bloody hard to track down -- the bastard refused to stay in one place for longer than approximately eight seconds and it had only gotten worse since he’d  _ apparently  _ gone and shacked up with a Witcher. 

And not even any ordinary Witcher (not that Witchers were ordinary), Julien had gone and made friends(?) with Geralt of Rivia -- The Butcher of Blaviken! The White Wolf! 

Like the idiot needed any help getting himself murdered; he just needed to open his damn mouth most days and everyone in the general vicinity wanted to stab him,  _ shag  _ him, or most often: both.

He had written several pretty decent ballads in the meantime, though. Which was great for him and terrible for her because  _ once again  _ she was regulated to just Julien’s goddamn sister. Nevermind her  _ own  _ merits.

Whatever; it got her gigs. Amaryllis ! The twin sister of Jaskier! She’s so amazing! Ah! Fuck, and she could not stress this enough, all of the way off with that horseshit. 

She was absolutely going to punch the little shit in the face the next time she saw him.

Well.

That had been the  _ plan _ , except somewhere between her stupid brother’s delighted “ _ Tuney! _ ” and her formidable right hook, a large, leather gloved hand had caught her wrist before it could commence with the bruising of the tanned, freckle smattered cheek.

“Jaskier,” and wow, ok, that was a growl. The White Wolf was holding her arm in the air and he was growling in her direction, she was absolutely not a fan. Fuck that whole thing  _ right  _ up the ass with a fiddle and bow, “a friend of yours?”

The way he said ‘friend’, like he thought she was yet another of Julien’s jilted lovers activated her gag-reflex at the same time it made her bark out a laugh -- the resulting sound was anything but attractive and had her sounding more like a braying donkey with a head cold than anything else.

“ _ Disgusting _ ,” she gasped out, trying to yank her arm away to exactly zero avail because Witchers were stupidly, stupidly, insanely strong, “I’m his sister!”

Bashful smiling had always been Julien’s specialty; he’d widen his eyes and look up through his eyelashes, chew on the inside of his lip  _ just so _ and immediately get out of any trouble he found himself in. 

It often left Alys stuck in the middle, usually covered in mud, and always getting lectured on how to be more ‘ladylike’. Which; gross. She showed them ladylike; she’d been caught necking in the stables with the mayor’s daughter; gotten arrested  _ several  _ times; done a small jaunt as a vigilante; and now, apparently, frowned at Witchers until they let her the fuck  _ go  _ with a vaguely disapproving grunt.

To be fair, however, if their mother had wanted perfect children  _ maybe  _ she shouldn’t have buggered a fae.

Just a thought.

“Sister,” Geralt said, eyebrows rising towards his hairline, “You never mentioned a sister.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Alys rolled her eyes, “I don’t tell people about him either. They always seem to connect the damn dots, though. ‘Oh are you Jaskier’s baby sister? How darling!’ Nevermind the part where I am actually five minutes  _ older  _ than you, you stupid bastard bard.”

Julien’s charming smile melted into an honestly delighted grin and Alys was pulled into a hug that crushed the air from her lungs, smelt of several days on the road (and something that might have been monster guts), and felt like coming home and sinking into a warm bath at the end of the day.

“Missed you, Tuney,” he whispered into her hair.

“Shut the fuck up,” Alys snapped, bringing her arms up to clutch her brother just as tightly as he had her, “Don’t call me that. I cannot fucking stand you.” 

_ Never leave me again _ ,  _ stupid _ .

“Sorry, sorry, Amaryllis . Bit of a mouthful, don’t you think?”

Oh, when compared to  _ Jaskier _ \-- 

“Just call me Alys,” she rolled her eyes and pulled away, brushing imaginary dust from her vest and pants like just being in his proximity could have damaged her clothes, “Have you spoken to our parents recently?”

“Absolutely not,” Julien answered immediately, “have you?”

“Briefly,” it took  _ so  _ much effort, but she managed to school her face into something serious and solemn, “Father is dying.”

One, two, three beats of silence; with Julien staring at Alys in shock and Alys trying valiantly to keep her lips from twitching, then they both broke.

“ _ Finally _ ,” Julien gasped through his laughter, “fuck, I thought that old bastard was going to live forever.”

Alys led him to the bar, the Witcher following close behind looking bemused, “Mother is devastated, obviously. So devastated, in fact, that she’s been sleeping in one of the guest rooms. With her aide.”

“Of course,” Julien agreed, settling into a tall stool between two identical, empty ones; Geralt took the one on his right, leaving the left for Alys.

She couldn’t help but notice that the Witcher had pointedly settled himself on her brother’s non-dominant side, “I don’t suppose you’re going to return home and be  _ Lord Pankratz _ ?”

“Absolutely not,” Julien repeated, with feeling, waving down the barkeep to order them all a round of ale, “And it’s no less intention than  _ you  _ have of assuming your role of  _ Lady _ .”

Pulling a face, Alys had to hand it to him. He wasn’t wrong, “Neither of us were meant for that life, Jules,” she said, so softly even she could barely hear herself.

Her brother did, though. And so did his companion.

“You two are surprisingly… gauche… about your father’s imminent passing,” Geralt pointed out, “especially considering  _ you _ ,” he pointed an accusing finger at Julien, “cried when I killed a deer for dinner last week.”

“That deer had never done anything untoward to anyone,” Julien defended, lifting his newly acquired mug for emphasis, “our father, however, is a bigger bastard than just about anyone I’ve ever met.”

“And that’s including us,” Alys added, sipping idly on her own ale, content to watch the two of them do… whatever it was they were doing, “considering that he’s  _ not  _ actually our father and Julien here did, in fact, inherit his tendency to sleep around through honest genetics.”

Blinking shrewd, golden eyes slowly, Geralt sat back with a grunt, “Why couldn’t I have run into  _ her _ first,” he asked despairingly, though there was a tilt to his mouth and a warmness to Julien’s eyes that let Alys in on the fact that he didn’t mean it, “ _ She’s  _ tolerable.”

And hell, she could toast to that.

And so she did, while Julien, predictably, squawked indignantly in the background.

Flirting is what, apparently, she had been privy to watching Geralt and Jaskier (because he’d refused, point blank, to call her anything but ‘Tunie’ if she kept referring to him as Julien and fair is fair, she supposed) engage in, back in that dimly lit bar a hundred miles from nowhere. 

Terrible, no good flirting that she really thought Jaskier would have turned his nose up at because he had standards, last she checked. But Geralt was… different. Than the other lovers her brother had taken over the years. 

For one, he seemed to have been around for more than a decade -- which spanned back to the last several times Alys had actually  _ seen  _ Jaskier and he had said nothing about being romantically attached, earning himself a solid wallop to the side of his big, stupid head-- without Jas ever becoming bored of him.

For another, he called her brother  _ Jas  _ so often that she’d started picking up on it.

He never put anise in the stew, even if it was plentiful in the area they made camp in, because Jas hated the stuff with the fury of a thousand dragons fighting over one goat. He kept lute oil and strings in his own pack because, if there was one thing Jaskier definitely was, he was a  _ disaster  _ and he always forgot to stock up on his own.

Though, to his own credit, Jas seemed to be the only person in the entire goddamn world to have cracked the enigma that was Geralt of Rivia. To Alys, even after nearly a year of traveling together, every stilted ‘Hmm’ from the Witcher sounded  _ exactly _ the same. 

He rarely tried it with her anymore, since the resemblance between her and her brother was never more apparent than when they were being a stubborn jackass about something and she’d taken to raising a single eyebrow and  _ staring  _ at him until he used his words like an  _ adult _ , fucking Pan help us all, Geralt.

Jaskier had, on more than a few dozen occasions, had full conversations with Geralt in which the other man  _ only  _ responded with a single hum every time it was his turn to speak. It made Alys want to pull her hair right out of her head and use it to  _ strangle them both _ .

Then there was Cirilla; the Lion Cub of Cintra, grandaughter of Queen fuckin Calanthe and apparently Geralt’s  _ child surprise _ . She was small, with a head of wild silver hair and an even wilder grin as she leapt from a tall branch in an even taller tree to tackle the Witcher when they’d gotten close to ‘their destination’; which Geralt refused to comment on and Jas simply called ‘home’.

Turns out, it was a small, coastal town, with sand the color of midnight and a comfortable cottage on a cliff where, hands down, the most beautiful woman Alys had ever seen emerged from the front door looking decidedly unimpressed with the lot of them.

It was nearly winter and the chill bit through Alys’ cloak, but the scarily resplendent woman simply leant against the door jam in a thin, dark dress that had the half-fae’s thoughts taking a sharp turn away from the family friendly.

Jaskier broke away from the group, where Geralt was weighed down with Cirilla (“Call me Ciri.) on his shoulders, batting at the drooping branches around them like an overgrown, very contented house cat as she chatted amiably with the veritable mountain of a man, and Alys was hanging back because she had  _ no  _ idea what the fuck was going on, to bound up to the woman and sweep her off of her feet and around in a circle.

“Yennefer!” He hadn’t set her down, instead grinning up at her like she was the whole sun, “You’re early!”

“Actually,” said Yennefer, settling her hands delicately on Jaskier’s shoulders, “you’re late. As always.” Jaskier pouted as he set her back on her feet, but she paid him no mind, turning instead to the other three, “And you brought a friend.”

Oh fuck, Alys was supposed to talk to her, wasn’t she? Pretty women had always thrown her off; she could charm the pants off of any man she needed to, for fun or for profit, but there was something about a beautiful woman that made all of the blood rush to her cheeks and her voice emerge in a squeak like a church mouse.

“I’m Amaryllis,” she managed, swallowing past the lump in her throat, “you can call me Alys, if you like.” 

“Our bard,” Geralt supplied from a few feet in front of her, “neglected to mention the fact that he’s a  _ twin _ .”

Yennefer’s eyebrows rose; Jaskier had the decency to look a little sheepish.

“It never came up?” He tried, earning four disgusted scoffs in return.

Tentatively, Alys held her hand up for a high five, which Ciri returned with a delighted grin. 

Sending Geralt and Jaskier to collect firewood -- more to get rid of them than an actual need for it -- Yennefer and Ciri filled Alys in on all of the things Geralt and Jaskier had left out over warm cups of tea and a strange, complicated card game at which Ciri was almost certainly cheating.

Yennefer, Jaskier,  _ and  _ Geralt were all together. Like, together-together. Yen had just laughed at her surprise.

“I didn’t see it coming either,” she admitted, “in fact, I couldn’t stand your brother for a solid decade. And the feeling was  _ absolutely  _ mutual.”

“He’s useless around any woman immune to his ‘boyish charm’,” Alys agreed, frowning at her cards, “which is why he avoided me for so long.” After much consideration, she set down a red four.

“That makes sense,” Ciri said sagely, dropping a blue four onto the pile and changing the color --fuck, Alys was out of blues-- “he never knows what to say around Yen. She’s threatened to turn him into an eel, before.”

“You’re a sorceress? How the fuck -- you are so out of my brother’s league.”

Yennefer laughed, loud and free, throwing her head back, the inky tumble of her hair fluttered with motion. 

When Jaskier and Geralt returned with the firewood that was absolutely, totally necessary, thank you boys! They found the card game abandoned and Yennefer performing increasingly elaborate magic tricks to the cheering of Ciri and Alys.

Looking over her shoulder and grinning toothily at her brother and his Witcher, Alys had the distinct feeling that she’d just been adopted into a super weird family. And after so long being on her own, it felt pretty fucking good.

Because nothing gold can stay, things went to shit in the spectacular fashion that could only befall a group that consisted of  _ two  _ bards, a Witcher, a sorceress, and a child of destiny. 

That is to say, everything went from casual Sunday stroll to completely tits up in less than a minute.

It was pure luck and excellent hearing on the side of her mother’s indiscretion that had Jaskier and Alys looking up at the notching of an arrow and Alys being close enough to Ciri to throw herself in front of her and take said arrow to her shoulder rather than the girl getting pegged directly in her eye.

“Fuck!” It was her  _ fucking  _ good arm. She was fairly ambidextrous, but she would be useless with her own bow if she couldn’t pull the string. 

“Alys!” Ciri’s hands were reaching for her shoulder, swears that no child should ever have occasion to use falling from her lips as she took in the damage, “It went straight through,” she said; Alys could only just hear her over the clamor of Geralt’s swords and Yen slinging spells, “that’s good.”

“It doesn’t  _ feel  _ good,” Alys hissed petulantly through gritted teeth; her jaw was clenched so tightly she was surprised her bones didn’t just shatter to escape the pressure, “just get it out, Ciri.”

“There’s too many of them!” That was Jaskier; then his warmth was at Alys’ other side. She was flanked between them, Jas and Ciri. 

Fuck. She should be protecting  _ them _ .

“Take it  _ out, _ ” she said again, “Cirilla! Now!” 

Hands quick and deft, even as her fingers trembled, Ciri snapped feathered end of the arrow off as close to the wound as she could gain the leverage, “On three okay?” She asked, and when Alys nodded she said, “Three!” And  _ yanked _ .

Alys cried out in surprise, eyes snapping open as the few tears that had managed to squeeze themselves from the corners of her eyes trailed down her cheeks, “ _ Fuck! _ ”

“If I counted you would have tensed up,” Ciri explained, inserting herself gingerly under Alys’ injured arm while Jas took her right, urging her insistently to her feet, “it’s easier when you’re relaxed.”

While Alys wouldn’t exactly call herself  _ relaxed _ , at least the arrow was out of her fucking shoulder, “Where are Geralt and Yen?” 

“Here,” Yen said at her back, “I’m opening a portal. Geralt is picking off the ones close enough to try and jump with us.”

Things went a little murky for a moment; Alys’ head felt heavy. Too heavy to keep up; like someone had attached weights to her ears. She kept nodding forward; Jas and    
Ciri struggling to keep her upright as her knees liquified inside her skin. 

“S’mthings wr’ng,” she slurred; distantly she knew there must have been something on the arrow; but words were very hard and her tongue was suddenly too large inside of her mouth. Speaking felt clumsy. “C’ri, s’mthing’s--”

“Shit,” she was hefted up higher on her right side, Jaskier getting with the goddamn program like a champ, “Ciri, look in Geralt’s bag. There should be a vial marked with a small ‘x’; it’ll have light purple liquid in it.”

“What is it?” Ciri asked, but she was already moving -- bless the child, as curious as she was about absolutely everything, she seemed to have mastered the art of multitasking.

“General antidote -- the arrow was poisoned. Even on the off chance it was a specialized formula, this targets the key toxins and neutralizes the effects. Alys invented it herself -- she’s always been a little chemist.” Jaskier was rambling; that wasn’t a good sign.

“Yen, hurry up, we have to--” Geralt broke off, “what happened to Amaryllis?” 

Managing to shift her eyes just enough to peek up at him with her head lolling as it was on her brother’s shoulder, Alys tried to tilt at least one side of her mouth upwards. It probably came out more like a grimace than a smile, but it was the thought that counted.

And she always made sure to smile at him, when his eyes went dark and inky veins spread across his forehead -- he thought he was a monster and she had decided to make it a point to prove that she, at least, didn’t think so, despite how concerned she’d been about Jaskier’s relationship with him at the beginning.

It was very quickly apparent that her brother was in  _ love _ love with both Geralt and Yen and fuck it all if she wasn’t thrilled. At least one of them got a happy ending.

“G’r’lt,” she said around a mouth full of cotton, “‘m ‘kay.”

“Poison,” Ciri answered quickly, and then the soft pop of a cork being pulled from a glass vial and the mouth of the bottle of antidote was pressed to her lips.

“Open,” Jas ordered.

Even under the threat of death, there was the moment of obstinate refusal to do what her sibling told her to do before she gave in and let him pour the bitter liquid down her throat.

The initial headrush was stronger than the dizziness from the poison had been and her knees finally gave up the ghost. 

Geralt lurched forward and caught her as she pitched forward, hauling her up and against his chest with one arm, “ _ Yennefer _ !”

“I’m  _ going _ ,” Yen shouted back.

Oh, she sounded mad. Geralt was sleeping on the couch. 

The light from the portal was so bright Alys had to squint her eyes against it with a hiss. Oh,  _ fuck _ , she hated traveling by portal. 

“I might throw up on you,” she warned weakly, but hey, at least she could get words out again; the next time someone asked her who she was she was going to respond that she was one hell of a chemist and leave it at that. 

Geralt grunted in acknowledgement and Alys decided to take it as ‘ _ Don’t worry about it, oh, favorite sister in law of mine. I’ve definitely dealt with worse and anything would be worth it to keep you safe. I love you very much and extremely platonically.”  _

As much as she hated it, Alys had traveled via portal several handfuls of times and as such, when something went wrong, she immediately noticed. It wasn’t anything apparent so much as it was the  _ energy  _ that was off.

Something in the air that rushed around them tasted like old blood -- her skin tingled and her hair stuck up like she’d been struck by lightning.

On instinct, she thrashed, throwing herself from Geralt’s hold the second the magic overtook them.

Someone yelled -- maybe it was Yen, maybe it was Jas, hell, it could have even been her for all of the awareness she could muster

The wind whipped her hair, pulled back in a thick horsetail, around her face and then she was landing, crashing, really, onto something hard like stone, but too rough.

The world around her smelled like fire and metal; people were yelling; she opened her eyes to a blue sky stained by smoke and people dressed in dark blue, matching uniforms gathered around her.

“Jas…?” She rasped, blinking slowly; she turned her head.

She was alone.

She was alone.

She was--

Nothing.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. i don't quite know what to say but i'm here in your doorway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the MOST self indulgent also i've doodled alys a. lot. a lot a lot. idk i kind of love her i might keep her for og projects she's an absolute doll.

“Al?” Ed shoved himself into what could loosely be considered a sitting position if one were being very, very generous. His elbows were made of jelly, which was especially impressive considering one of them was made of actual metal. 

Al didn’t respond and Ed reached up one hand to shove his bangs out of his face; he was surrounded by four people he didn’t recognize, all crumpled on the concrete the same way he was and all looking extremely confused about the whole thing.

Out of those four people, however, none of them were Al.

Shooting to his feet like the ground was made of electrified lava, Ed spun in a circle, “Al? Al!” He sounded hysterical; he knew that, in the distant kind of way that meant there was exactly zero chance of him giving a single fuck about it, “ _Alphonse_?”

“Alys?” The similarity in pitch made Ed turn; the brunette man he didn’t know looked something very akin to terrified, “Amaryllis Pankratz you get your ass out here right this second, this is _not_ funny!” 

Ed’s knees gave up the ghost and he sunk back onto the ground, covering his face with his hands. No. _No, no, no_. He racked his brain for an explanation, any goddamn explanation. He’d known it was a little ambitious to start with, especially since Al was going to have to power the array himself, but in theory it was flawless. A portal inside of a portal; one to drop the airships outside of Berlin where they wouldn’t hurt anybody in their inevitable crash and a second to drop him and Al off in London.

Just because he couldn’t do alchemy didn’t mean he lost all of the knowledge Truth had given him and it _should have worked_.

“Yennefer, what the _fuck_ \--” Growled the white haired man.

“I don’t know,” admitted the scarily beautiful woman, one hand pressed to her forehead and face pinched in pain, “lower your voice.”

“Lower his -- _My sister is missing, Yen!_ ” Yelped the Brunette, “Geralt’s _tone_ is the least of our problems right now!” 

The man, who was apparently Geralt, had busied himself helping the fair haired child sit up and checking her over for injuries. 

“What happened?” Asked the child, “I thought we were going to Kaer Morhen?” 

For a moment Ed thought he was having a stroke -- then it hit him.

“You opened a portal,” he whispered, earning eight eyes darting in his direction and zeroing in, “you opened a _portal_.” He hadn’t accounted for that in his calculations. He hadn’t considered the idea that, not only were there other, other worlds but that they had the ability to create portals at will. 

“Yes,” said Yennefer impatiently, “I do it all of the time. Any mage worth their bloody chaos can open a portal; it’s _basic magic_.”

And well, Ed didn’t have time to unpack _all_ of that; not when Al was missing and he had no way to get back to him.

“Can you make one now?” He asked and the woman scoffed, lifting a hand and furrowing her brow. 

When nothing happened, her expression morphed into something much less contemptuous. Face tightening she held out her other hand along with the first. 

“Fuck,” she whispered, “ _fuck_! Where the fuck are we?” She demanded of Ed, “What kind of land doesn’t have magic?”

“England,” replied Ed dryly, tilting his head back to blink at the inky black sky, “So you opened a portal in your world at the same time I opened one in Amestris and they somehow converged and ended with you here with me and my brother and your sister… Alys? Unaccounted for.” 

“That sounds like an excellent summation,” the brunette said, only a little snippily which Ed was going to generously allow given the circumstances, “now what do we do about it? Because if there’s no magic here, that means Yen can’t get us home. How did _you_ make a portal?”

“I didn’t,” Ed sighed, “come on, I’ll explain my side of everything once we’re not sitting in the middle of Piccadilly fuckin’ Circus. Someone’s gonna call the police on us; especially with you dressed like _that_. Are those swords?”

“Geralt's a Witcher,” the child said, rising to her feet and brushing off her pants with a level of grace Ed couldn’t even dream of having, “my name is Ciri, by the way.”

“Ed. I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but things are looking a little fucked right now.”

Ciri snorted out a laugh that still managed to sound like music, “Completely tits up,” she agreed.

“Cirilla!” The brunette gasped, “Where did you learn that kind of language?”

The look she gave him would have made Mustang proud, “Literally you.”

Ed swallowed hard around the lump in his throat; he shouldn’t think of Mustang. He really, really shouldn't. It wasn’t good for his heart. Or his tear ducts.

Truth, he’d been so close to getting everything he’d ever wanted. When he’d gone back to work for the military he’d requested _not_ to be assigned to Mustang’s unit. He couldn’t do alchemy anymore and every moment spent working for his old unit was just going to pour salt in what was still an open, festering wound. 

Instead, he went to Hughes, who had finally been returned to full duty and reclaimed his rightful place as head of investigations. Alchemy or no, Ed could snoop like nobody's business. 

He’d conferred with Mustang first, of course he had, and had the man asked him to stay he knew he would have folded like a house of cards. But he hadn’t said anything; he’d given Ed his blessing. Arranged for the transfer himself. 

But he also didn’t say anything when Ed dropped by to waste time in the office. And sometimes he looked at Ed, when he thought Ed wasn’t paying attention, and he _smiled_ like he’d gotten handed a literal star as a present. 

Those moments, Ed wondered if maybe he had a chance. He’d been telling himself that he needed to figure out how to fall out of love with the bastard, but then, just when he thought he maybe had, Roy freaking Mustang would send him that smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes and showed just a flash of brilliantly white teeth, and Ed fell all over again.

And then the array -- Investigations worked closely with just about everybody, it was inevitable that sometimes Ed would work with the bastard’s unit. And, truth be told, those were his favorite assignments. Hunting down rogue alchemists would never not be fun; and then there was the added layer of righteous indignation and fury that those assholes took what Ed no longer had and used it to fuck with other people’s lives. Punching them was cathartic. 

It was pure luck that Ed was at the right angle to even see the array -- the bastard had been smart, he’d used ink that blended in almost seamlessly with the wooden floor except that when the light hit it _just_ right it was just the tiniest bit reflective. 

Roy, the dumbass, stepped right into the center of the thing before Ed could do much more than open his mouth to begin to shout a warning. So he’d done the only thing he, an even bigger dumbass, could have done.

He pushed Roy out of the way and got caught up in the array himself. 

He’d woken up in Berlin, in the middle of a war that spanned the entire globe with no conceivable way to get home.

And then he’d gotten home, he’d _done_ it, but he had to stop the damn Nazis from destroying the place and the only way to do that was to _once again_ give up everything, absolutely everything. 

He’d seen Mustang for all of ten seconds, ten heartstopping seconds where he thought he was going to die if he didn’t kiss the man right that moment, and then he’d smiled sadly, so, so fucking sadly, like his heart was _breaking_ and was gone and Ed was piloting a ship back to Berlin.

At least this time he’d had Al.

He’d thought he’d had Al.

Fuck, the little shit better have gotten spit out back in Amestris and not whatever weird universe his new ‘companions’ were from.

  
  


“I put you on the ship _myself_ ,” Roy Mustang had a headache. No, no, that was putting it too lightly. Let’s give it another go.

Roy Mustang felt like someone had scooped his brain from his skull with half a pair of chopsticks and a playing card, stuffed it in a blender on high, shaken it (not stirred) in a martini shaker, garnished it with lemon juice and salt, and then put it back in his head secured with nothing stronger than the mild adhesive his mother’s girls used to apply their false eyelashes.

“You did,” Alphonse replied, like this burst of weirdness was nothing but a blip on his radar -- actually, given the rest of his life, it probably didn’t even register _as_ a blip, “and then I woke up in the middle of Central.”

“At least you’re in the right universe,” the girl mumbled, slumping back in her chair and using her good arm to pinch the bridge of her nose.

She was, ultimately, the cause of Roy’s headache. Specifically the ‘right universe’ part of her statement. Her name was Alys Pankratz (“Well,” she’d admitted as Dr. Knox was patching up the arrow wound in her shoulder, “it’s actually Petunia, but I don’t use it.”) and other concerning things she’d said in the two hours Roy had known her consisted of:

In response to her bleeding shoulder, “Oh, yeah. Some Nilfgaardian asshole shot me. Well, he was aiming at the princess but I got in the way.”

When Knox was concerned about the strange, dark veining spreading outwards from the wound, “The arrow was tipped with some kind of poison. I think I cured the worst of it; I don’t feel particularly poisoned anymore.”

And of course, “Hey, has anyone seen my brother? A little taller than me, has my face, really obnoxious?” Which is what had prompted the strange sort of kinship that Alphonse had immediately struck up with her.

“Have you got any idea how we could _return_ you to the correct universe, Miss. Pankratz?” Roy asked, resisting the urge to copy her gesture.

“Just Alys is fine,” she said absentmindedly, “if we’re using titles mine would be _Lady_ and I have no intention in claiming that particular birthright. And no, unfortunately, I don’t. I can’t open portals, that’s Yen’s thing. I’m more of a… potion-making, plant growing kind of magic user.”

“And Yen is…?”

“My sister in law,” a pause, “I guess. They’re not actually married, I don’t think? We haven’t found a solid ritual for three people yet. Anyways, it doesn’t even matter because she’s not _here_. I woke up alone, ‘side for this one,” she jabbed her thumb towards Alphonse who nodded in agreement, “My guess is that all of them ended up wherever he and his brother were trying to go.”

One could only hope; “And how did you come to this conclusion?” 

Alys looked at him like he was stupid (he wasn’t stupid) and Alphonse tried very, very hard to turn his laugh into a cough, “Think about it; if your lot doesn’t usually have the ability to travel by portal, let alone _interdimensional_ portal, then you opening said portal probably sent some things out of alignment. We, on the other hand, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“You think the portals crossed each other,” Alphonse mumbled thoughtfully; he looked so much like his brother with that expression plastered on his face that Roy’s heart _hurt_ , “That’s not a bad idea. I’ve never traveled that way before, so I couldn't be sure but it felt a little… turbulent?”

Nodding, Alys took her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed on it for a moment before releasing, “I thought it felt weird,” she admitted, “but I was also fighting the poison at the time. I hate portalling, usually, it’s half the reason we walk everywhere. That and Roach, that’s Geralt’s horse, by the way. But I thought something was off from the start. Geralt was carrying me when we went in but it felt so wrong I wiggled away from him and ended up flat on my back in your world.”

“And fist fighting three of my officers,” Roy sighed.

She at least had the decency to look a little sheepish, “Sorry about that,” she said, “really, I am. The last thing I remembered at the time was being ambushed and shot -- can you really blame me for reacting badly to several dozen armed strangers in matching uniforms?”

Well, when she put it like that, “No, I suppose I can’t.” He turned to Alphonse, “I suggest you phone Miss. Rockbell. I’m sure she’ll appreciate hearing about this newest bombshell from you.”

“Disaster magnet, huh?” Alys asked, side eyeing the blonde with a sly smile.

Alphonse blushed scarlet, “Shut up!” He cried, smacking her good arm as he made for the phone, “Like you’re one to talk.”

“Never said I wasn’t,” she was still grinning as Alphonse lifted his hand in a gesture that would have had Edward clutching for his pearls if he could see his sweet, innocent baby brother. 

Roy sighed and pushed up from his desk, all of his joints protesting him having the _audacity_ to use them for their intended purpose, “We should give him some privacy,” he said, “and spare our eardrums. Miss. Rockbell has… very healthy lungs.”

Snorting as she rose from her chair, Alys shook her head, “That’s a very… diplomatic way of saying she’s loud.”

“I _am_ a politician,” Roy pointed out, holding his office door open and ushering her through, “Why are you still here?” He asked Havoc and Hawkeye, who he distinctly remembered sending home over an hour prior.

"Aw, don't be like that, Chief," Havoc grinned around the unlit cigarette between his lips, "We couldn't leave when Al and the new girl were still looking all grimy and confused."

"New Girl has a name," Alys groused, "It's Alys."

"Jean Havoc," he held out a hand, which Alys eyed like it was made of bees before taking gingerly, "pleased to meet you."

"Likewise," she drawled, "you got another one of those?" She gestured towards the cigarette, "It's been a hell of a day."

"No smoking inside the office," Havoc said, even as he tapped another out of his pack, "Boss' orders."

Chuckling, she reached into his front pocket to take his lighter and stuck the filter into her mouth, "Good thing I don't work here, then." 

As she lit the smoke, Roy watched Havoc's expression go a little dreamy and he sighed, shifting slightly to the left to bestow upon Riza his best look of exasperated fondness, to which she responded with a roll of her eyes and a pointed glance to her gun.

Sighing again, Roy took the lit cigarette and put it out against the underside of his boot, ignoring Alys' indignant "Hey!"

"I was _smoking_ that," she hissed.

"And now you're not," he responded, handing Havoc back his lighter, "and you are going home. Both of you."

"Sir," Hawkeye agreed as Havoc let out a huff that may have been a sigh from anyone else.

"Sure, sure. You always keep the pretty ones to yourself," he complained.

Roy had known Alys Pankratz (and what a _name_ ) for about three hours and already knew exactly what she was going to say before she even opened her mouth.

"Aw," she simpered, batting her eyelashes as she twirled a lock of umber hair around her right index finger, "you think I'm pretty?"

The _drip, drip, splat_ of Havoc's brain melting out of his ears was almost audible.

"I… uh. Of course I do. Look at you, you're--"

"Even when I'm dirty, and bloody, and my arms in a sling, and I almost tore your teammate's throat out with my teeth?" Bat, bat went Alys' eyelashes.

Drip, drip went Havoc's amygdala, because otherwise it would be screaming at the man to _run_ before Alys had the chance to eat him alive.

Alphonse reappeared in the doorway like a vaguely chastised but no less resplendent angel of mercy and tugged on the end of Alys’ ponytail, “Stop terrorizing the villagers,” he said.

“I’m not _terrorizing_ ,” she dropped the façade as quickly as she’d donned it, tilting her head back to grin at the younger Elric, “Jean and I were just chatting, weren’t we?”

Sputtering something that sounded affirmative, Havoc managed a clunky nod and a sloppy salute in Roy’s direction, “Permission to go the fuck home, Sir?”

“Permission granted,” Roy graciously confirmed; honestly he could have watched Alys torment his subordinate for at least another twenty minutes before even considering saving him. 

“Winry will be here on the morning train,” Alphonse said, “think any of the hotels are still standing?”

“None of the good ones,” Roy checked his pockets to make sure he had his keys, “my house, however, should be untouched. And I have more than enough space for the both of you.”

Alys turned wide, questioning eyes not to Roy, but to Alphonse, who nodded back firmly, “I trust him.”

A long moment of silence before she nodded slowly back, “Okay, Mr. Mustang. I’m in.”

  
  


Mr. Mustang was a strange sort of man, Alys decided. And she was pretty damn familiar with strange things. His house was large, but he was the only person who lived in it; he didn’t even have _staff_.

He gave her her _own_ room, complete with a bathroom that housed a bath _tub_ with magic running water that never seemed to go cold! Dr. Knox had told her not to get her bandages wet but she’d put her body through much worse for much less.

She’d just rewrap them when she was done. 

The water was hot enough to boil a chicken and she sunk down to her chin almost immediately; it almost made her shout when it soaked through the bandages and danced across her stitches but _fuck_ she didn’t care. 

The very best part was once she’d scrubbed the worst of the grime from her skin and the water around her had turned murky and gross she simply emptied the tub through the drain in the bottom and refilled it!

She had to do it twice and by the time she finally pushed herself to her feet she was scrubbed raw and redder than a lobster but she was beautifully, blessedly clean. She didn’t think she’d been so perfectly squeaky since she was a child with a team of nannies charged with trying to keep her and Jas out of trouble.

There was a plush, cream colored robe waiting for her when she exited the bathroom, wrapped in the softest towel she’d ever brushed her fingers against. Her clothes; the doublet and pants she’d been wearing when she’d crash landed in Amestris, were gone. 

She couldn’t even force herself to feel indignant about the whole thing; she would have, normally. They were gross, yes, but she could have washed them. It wouldn’t have been that hard to salvage them, she’d dealt with far more butchered clothing over the years when she didn’t have the coin to go out and buy more.

But the robe was very comfortable and the slippers that went along with it, while far too big, were soft and squishy; they flopped and slapped against her feet as as she padded down the hallway, robe carefully pulled down away from her left shoulder to keep the stitches from catching on the material.

The house really was too big for just one person; she felt like she needed a map. By the time she found Mr. Mustang and Alphonse in what looked like a library, she figured that the man must be either very lonely, never home, or perhaps a bit of both.

Both sets of eyes turned to her as she stopped in the doorway and Alys tamped down hard on the blush that threatened to rise to her cheeks, “Hello,” she said, shifting the robe higher up her shoulder, trying to be polite -- it was all fun and games in the incredible vastness of Central Command, but this was Mr. Mustang’s _home_. While he clearly knew Alphonse well he had only just met her and had still invited her to stay, seemingly with no ulterior motive.

That called for a certain level of decorum that, while she didn’t use it often, had been ingrained in her since childhood. 

“Do you have any bandages?” She asked, staring intently at the row of books over Mr. Mustang’s right shoulder, “I may have forgotten,” _ignored_ , “Dr. Knox’s order to not get them wet. They weren’t salvageable so I threw them away but I do need to rewrap them.” Probably; she’d always healed faster than most but there was still the poison to account for. 

"Of course," Mustang stood, "one moment." He even offered her a smile on his way past her and out the door and she let out a breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding.

She turned her gaze to Alphonse, still seated on the sofa as he'd been since she'd found them, "You," she said accusingly, stomping forward and dropping carefully into an overstuffed armchair, careful to keep her left side facing outward, even if she had to crane her neck to properly glare at her new friend, "did not tell me he was attractive."

It was a running joke that the sluttiness Jaskier had inherited from their father mother had skipped her but it really, _really_ had not. She was just a little more selective and a lot more discreet than her brother. 

Less people tried to kill her for buggering their spouse that way.

Alphonse laughed, cementing his comparison to Jaskier in her mind and making her glare harder, "I never noticed," he said, and that at least sounded true enough.

She liked Alphonse. It wasn't often that she met someone that she simply clicked with immediately but losing your brother through an interdimensional portal seemed to be a bonding experience like no other.

Plus, he was _good_. He didn't have a cruel bone in his body; which isn't to say he wasn't dangerous. She'd seen the magic he'd used when she'd been attacking the soldiers, too scared and feral to ask questions. He'd slammed his hands into the ground and a pillar of stone erupted to separate them. 

He could kill someone without breaking a sweat but he _wouldn't_ and that was the important distinction. 

Which is why she'd decided to trust him; he knew this world and he wasn't likely to betray her.

Also, she did just simply, genuinely like him. It had been a while since she had a friend who wasn't irrevocably tied to her brother.

Still, "You didn't _notice_ ," she hissed incredulously, trying very hard to keep her voice down, "How do you not notice? He's practically sex _walking_ ." She shrugged the robe even higher up her shoulder at the thought; it still wasn’t high enough to stop the niggling voice that sounded _alarmingly_ like her mother from shrieking in the very back of her mind, "And I don't know if you noticed but I'm not exactly fully dressed under this robe."

"He's not my type," Alphonse responded dryly, "And he's also already arranged for Riza -- Colonel Hawkeye, the blonde woman you met in command? -- to bring you shopping tomorrow," he paused, smirking, "On the military's dime, of course."

"It's called diplomacy, Alphonse," Mustang had returned and Alys straightened in her chair, wondering how much he'd heard before he announced himself, "and we have a good amount for it in the budget. Mostly because your brother wouldn't stop blowing things up," there was something in his voice that Alys recognized very clearly.

Longing.

She wondered if Alphonse knew that the general was in love with his older brother; either way, it wasn't her place to let that particular cat out of the sack. 

There was a bundle of cloth in his arms -- far too large to be just bandages. He followed her gaze and smiled, “I also grabbed antiseptic to clean the wound as well as a set of pajamas that shouldn’t be _too_ large on you.”

Alys blinked twice, slowly, before allowing herself a restrained smile, “That was very thoughtful,” she said, “thank you, Mr. Mustang.”

“Who are you and what you have don’t with Alys,” Alphonse interrupted whatever Mustang had opened his mouth to say, “ _Mr. Mustang_?” 

The blush from being called out was so intense that she could feel it spreading down her neck and chest like a brand, “It… when we were in the big building it was different,” she looked at her fingers, twisted together on her lap, before looking back up and meeting Mustang’s eye, “I understand that for most people their home is their sanctuary and it would be _reprehensible_ of me to respond to you inviting me into that sanctuary by being a… well, a jackass.” She wasn’t raised in a barn.

“I,” Mustang paused, considering his next words carefully, “appreciate the sentiment,” he settled on, “but as this is also your home for the foreseeable future I’d much prefer if we were all candid with each other.”

“I don’t understand,” Alys’ eyebrows pinched together.

“He means we’re going to be cohabitating for a bit so you may as well roast him like a marshmallow,” Alphonse translated with a self satisfied smile as Mustang looked at him extremely unimpressed.

“Essentially, yes,” he said after a moment; he turned back to Alys with another smile, “you can start by calling me Roy.”

Across the room, Alys watched Alphonse pull a face and mouth the name with no small amount of derision; she raised a hand to cover her grin and shook her head slowly.

“Alright, Roy,” she said, “I do have an important question.”

“What’s that?”

“I have no idea what the _fuck_ a marshmallow is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blah blah my tumblr is pansexualorgana come say hi [here](https://pansexualorgana.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> yes they were playing Fantasy Uno
> 
> i had a weird dream but ngl im vibing so  
> blah blah my tumblr is pansexualorgana come say hi [here](https://pansexualorgana.tumblr.com/)


End file.
